A new report based on open source evidence backs up figures released by the Palestinian health ministry on the number of people killed in the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, despite claims by the US and Israel that the death toll cannot be trusted.
According to an Airwars investigation that independently identified nearly 3,000 full names of civilian victims killed in the first 17 days of the war, the ministry’s figures are “broadly reliable” in spite of the difficulties involved in assessing the casualties.
Since October, the health ministry has regularly released updates of the number of Palestinians killed by Israel’s assault.
On Wednesday, it said that so far, 39,145 Palestinians have been killed and 90,257 wounded in Gaza.
The figures have been disputed by Israel and its allies, with US President Joe Biden saying last year that he had “no confidence” in them, while media outlets regularly highlight the ministry’s control by Hamas with the implication they should be taken with a grain of salt.
The report – which Airwars described as the “largest and most in-depth public analysis of the [Ministry of Health] data yet” produced – said the investigation found a high correlation between the ministry figures and what Palestinian civilians reported online, with 75 percent of publicly reported names also appearing on the MoH list.
Airwars is a London-based non-profit affiliated with the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, that investigates civilian deaths in conflicts.
“This painstaking research provides strong validation for both the first Ministry of Health list of the dead and the reliability of social media posts from Palestinians collected by Airwars covering the same period,” said Professor Mike Spagat, chair of monitoring group Every Casualty Counts.
“Neither list is complete but the 75 percent matching rate demonstrates convincingly that both capture a large fraction of the underlying reality.”
Despite official scepticism, both the US and Israel have reportedly cited the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s figures in their assessments.
According to Israeli media reports, military and intelligence are relying almost exclusively on the ministry for figures and death tolls.
One Israeli source said a comprehensive investigation was conducted during the war, and revealed that the numbers published by the ministry are “on the whole reliable” when it came to death tolls and previous operations.
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